Bounce (tour)

Note: The following review dates from April 2001 and this production’s earlier London run at The Roundhouse.

Bounce is a
raucous, predictably high-energy celebration of the myriad forms of street
dance. The bass lines pump out and run through you, and the choreography is
vibrant throughout. It’s impossible not to like this show.

Anthony van Laast directs a fabulously acrobatic ensemble, the five-year-old
Swedish Bounce Streetdance Company. Sixteen performers are listed in the
program, but I counted thirteen artists the night I attended.

The arena is a large convex raised stage, and in Lez Brotherston‘s
production design, it upholds platforms, staircases and levered tables while
offering a generous space for the company’s breaking, body popping, and even
swing dances.

Indeed, just when one thinks that the show is strictly “for young people by
young people”, several homages to past eras burst through. A Big Band number
finds the dancers changed out of their hip-hop baggy outfits and into
pinstripe suits and broad hats. Later, a lovely 1970s disco/funk piece allows
for brassy clothes and huge permed hairstyles, especially when it comes to
Afro wigs.

Among a series of dazzling solo turns, Damon Frost raps and wows with some
muscular locking, while Sonic and WilPower, their shell suits a-shining,
deliver some brilliant breakdancing.

Prepare for 75 minutes of high volume music, and surrender to the exuberance
of a dance company who break sweat, continually stretch their limbs in
directions most mortals would find impossible, and communicate great joy in
the fluidity and potential of the human frame.

Paul B Cohen